We removed Aero Glass effect to extend your PC's battery life and while we were at it, we also removed the option to enable it in case you really liked Aero Glass. After all, almost all PCs run on battery and we at Microsoft know best what you should want. You are just a dumb user.

Hey! Look who is hiding over there! The Aero Glass effect was present in the early builds of Windows 8. Surely they could have added the option to enable it if the user wanted to... but then again, Windows is no longer about what their customers want. It is all about what those fools at Microsoft think that their customers should want. Therefore, force feeding the users are not a problem according to the beliefs of the fools at Microsoft. It seems that the Windows team get extra points for removing as much functionalities and options as possible.

...I absolutely miss Aero Glass effect, using Windows 8 + Office 2013 feels like prison. Not only it has that moronic creepy Orwellian "Windows Store" in it, but it is UGLY! ...and I really mean it, UGLY! This new Windows 8 theme is SO AMAZINGLY claustrophobic that you wouldn't believe. At first one doesn't notice it but the more you use it, the more claustrophobic it feels.

I remember when Aero Glass came out (the only thing I disliked was the round corners) I was happy because my day of adding themes on Windows was over. It was a very fresh and light look for some reason. Never got tired of it... now this Windows 8... oh my, Windows 9x had a better and more fresh theme than this thing... heck even Windows 3.1 beats it!

Been pondering a good while now to move my main desktop machine to Linux. I mean, if I'm going to fiddle with themes, I might as well use Linux. I'm so so so sooo sick of Microsoft and their fucked up attitude toward customers that I find no words to describe the feeling. I mean, MOTHERFUCKERS, WHY NOT GIVE THE CUSTOMER THE DAMN OPTION TO TURN THE AERO GLASS ON IF THE CUSTOMER WISHES TO?

Not sure which one is worse, Microsoft removing the choice for the customer or the idiots running around on forums like Neowin cheering Microsoft to NOT giving customers the option to enable Aero Glass... I MEAN REALLY, WHAT THE FUCK!

The rotting corporate culture at Microsoft and their yes-men in Channel 9 is a kind of sickness, a psychotic illness most likely. If they would have the power, they would dictate what color your walls in your room would have, of course, all playskool colors. Most of them are absolutely psychotic deranged people, dictating even smallest things like a theme for your desktop on people AND going out of their way to REMOVE the option for anyone who wanted Aero Glass theme.

Attacking anyone who comes up with a critique or wanting to have an option for other themes or colors.

Nothing less than a psychotic illness could cause such behaviour. These are the kind of people who would gladly work at Nazi death camps. I'm sure of it. These kind of people are highly dangerous to society as a whole, especielly if they come into power, anywhere, be it in government or just a theme designer at Microsoft. They should be studied and there should be books written about them to help educate others and perhaps some day we could find preventive measures on how to deal with a psychotic illness like this, an illness which makes the people having it feel the urge to force their views and even their TASTE of colors on to others.

Not only usability was lost when they introduced Windows 8.x. We also lost a lot of beauty. Not belittling nature, of course, but when I had the original Aero Glass, I actually wanted to sit in front of my PC. Without the need of third party software, you could make Windows beautiful by just changing your desktop wallpaper. Below are just some of the variations you would get by changing the wallpaper and I haven't even changed the color tone of the windows.

I hope that whoever made the final decision and gave a go on removing the glass effect, be it one person or many, that he/she/they all go to hell and burn for eternity. They could have easily given us the option of enabling Aero Glass, after all, it's just a shader effect, but no, no no no no nooo, they cannot give users options. They MUST dictate what your desktop will look like. They MUST force you to use the moronic themes they feel you should use. Kind'a like a TV. No choice, only rabbits!

Aero Glass is a theme that many loved and it broke many hearts when the theme was not included with Windows 8. With it's tasteful transparency and the ability to tweak the tints of the glass, many hoped that the theme would return with Windows 8.1. Alas, Microsoft decided to can the theme and moved to the flatter pastures with the introduction of the modern design language.

But, if you like to live on the bleeding (and leaked) edge of Windows and want to relive the glory days of Aero, you can do so in the Windows 8.1 update 1 that has leaked. With a simple registry tweak you can bring back Aero Glass but we should note that the theme is extremely buggy and not for those who are doing anything other than simply playing with the theme.

The tweak involves changing the values inside of your registry which we might add should only be done by folks who know what they are doing as a bad registry change can kill your system. But, if you are brave enough, do the following: locate KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows and then click on 'Windows' and select New > Key and name it DWM. From there, create a Dword 32bit values and name it HideBlur, then change the value to 1.

While we are cautiously optimistic that Microsoft will bring back one of the best themes the company has created, seeing as this can only be done in a leaked build of Windows 8.1, we wouldn't get too excited as these things are quite common. In fact, since it is a leaked build, everything is subject to change and the ability to enable Aero Glass could be an oversight by those who compiled the build.